Portland, ME

March 2014

So many home brewers dream of making the leap—abandoning their nine-to-fives to pursue brewing full-time. Fortunately for Maine’s craft beer community, Nathan Sanborn had the guts and tenacity to do it. Since opening its doors in 2010, Sanborn and his wife Heather have made Rising Tide Brewing Company one of the region’s most successful second-wave craft producers. But the key, as with every artisan production, was starting small.

Rising Tide began as a nano-brewery, producing one 31-gallon barrel at a time. Demand grew rapidly enough that the brewery was able to move from its small home to a space three times as large in Portland’s East Bayside neighborhood and make a considerable uptick in barrel production. Further expanding their reach, Rising Tide beer is now available in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Sanborn is still the man—and 2014 Rising Star Brewer—behind the barrels of brew and happily tinkers with new ways to slake an increasing and increasingly thirsty audience.